Lorien Drabbles
by IfICouldOnlyFly
Summary: Drabbles and Oneshots to help combat my brutal FoF feels. Some canon, some AU.
1. Art

It was freeing. Broad strokes, back and forth on the cave wall, thin lines emphasizing features, brown eyes and blue and green. Even something as simple as mixing colours calmed Marina down. There was something soothing in knowing that there was a colour somewhere out there that was perfect for the boy's hair, and that finding it was one tiny bit closer to having him there for real.

She had been working on this portrait of John Smith for ages. Marina was certain that he was a Garde, and the girl whose image had consumed her dreams, running away from a burning building, gazing at a map as rich foliage rushed past, was as well.

Maybe they knew each other. Maybe they met up. Maybe they weren't the only ones. Maybe all the remaining Loric were with them, Garde and Cêpan, except for her and Adelina. Maybe they would sweep in one day, straight into the convent, and be thrilled to meet her. She could be the last piece of the puzzle. They would leave this village, leave Spain, and travel the world. Adelina would come too, of course. John and the girl would convince her. Seeing them and the other Cêpans would remind her why they were there in the first place. To save their planet. They will defeat the Mogadorians, somehow, and find their ship and fly as quickly as they can back to Lorien. She might even pick up a set of paints beforehand, and a sketchbook, to recreate their journey.

Marina found herself painting a picturesque landscape. Lorien. In the very centre was a group of six. They weren't doing anything in particular, just lazing about and enjoying each other's company. A muscular boy with dark hair was nudging John in the side, pointing to the powerful looking girl who was fighting back a laugh. Marina herself was patiently teaching a stocky boy how to make daisy crowns, which adorned the heads of everyone in the group. The last figure was postively covered in the flowers, and he lay contentedly at everyone's feet, soaking up warmth from the sun.

Marina's eyes flicked over the painting, and she smiled.


	2. Pretend

Pretend

Ella liked to play pretend.

She used to play pretend a lot when she was little. She would go out with Crayton to one of those family diners that Ella loved, the ones that let you choose between whipped cream and ice cream on your pancakes, and served chocolate milk with bendy straws. Ella loved chocolate milk. They would be sitting in a squishy red booth somewhere, Ella staring intently at her pancakes and whipped cream, her forehead wrinkled as she contemplates the best way to eat it. Crayton would nudge her arm from his place across the table, and subtly point at a group of mothers fussing over young children way at the other side of the diner. "What about them?"

"They're best friends. They used to be princesses, but a group of evil knights took over their kingdoms and they had to hide and now they can only meet in secret. But some day, Papa, they're going to take back their castles! Then they can be queens and they won't have to hide and they can wear their crowns and have tea parties together every single day." she would say, excited at the game.

And Crayton would smile and say that she was very creative and his boring old mind could never come up with a story that great.

She would tell him that, "You're not THAT old, Papa."

Then he would tickle her and she would giggle so hard she would almost fall out of the booth. Crayton would grab her and hold her close and tell her that she was a princess too and that she would be just as great as the princesses in the table over there and would she like some chocolate milk? She would nod and continue the game with a "That baby over there is..."

Ella still likes to play pretend sometimes, when the pain of missing Crayton is too much to bear. She'll whisper the life stories of people in the cars she can see when she presses her face against one of the windows in Nine's penthouse. She pretends that Crayton is right beside her, and Ella will tell him the stories and how hard she has been training and about the Garde. She's probably making this up too, but sometimes she hears him talk back.

Crayton tells her how proud he is of her and how the way she told the story about Eight dropping those mugs of hot tea was really very good and that she should write it down. In many years, he says, when she is back on Lorien, people will line up through the doors and around the block to hear one of The Great Ella's stories.

Playing pretend for Ella is like Marina's painting; it's a release. She can sit at a window for hours on end. When she feels better, she stands up, shakes her sore limbs, and heads to the kitchen for a glass of chocolate milk.

**A/N: Thanks so much for reading this! This is my first fanfiction, so please bear with me as I try to get this figured out. To those who reviewed the last chapter: **

** . . .Five/Mysteryfanaticno1-Thanks so much! I love both of your Lorien Legacies works.**

**Lorien [Guest]-Thanks! Ella was not present in Marina's painting because it was before she knew about Ella. You were right. :-)**

**EpicLoric24 [Guest]-Thanks for your opinion. It reminded me that I gave no explanation whatsoever of the last drabble. Marina doesn't know about Ella yet, so she was not included in the painting. Likewise, she doesn't know about Five's shady allegiances yet, so he WAS in her painting. I'm sorry it was short, but I'm just starting out at this, and it wasn't intended to be the start of a larger plot, just a moment in time when Marina was able to escape the convent. The main point, I suppose, was to draw upon a part of Marina that the books didn't really go into detail on past PoS.**

**The title, by the way, for the last drabble, was "Art." **

**Disclaimer: I will never own Lorien Legacies. If I did, you can bet that FoF would have had a completely different ending.**

**-IfICouldOnlyFly**


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